Bentzion Levinson of Heven Aerotech, founder and chief executive officer, discusses the company's development of long-endurance heavy-lift unmanned aircraft that use hydrogen fuel cells for low-signature extended missions. Levinson explains that they focus on endurance, payload capacity and reduced acoustic and thermal signatures while integrating autonomy, quantum navigation and secure communications to support expeditionary refueling infrastructure and distributed operations.
theCUBE Research hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante guide the conversation through autonomy, quantum navigation and communications, expeditionary refueling and the operational and manufacturing challenges of deploying artificial intelligence, AI and swarm-capable robotics on modern battlefields.
Key takeaways include Levinson's assessment that the battlefield shifts from singular costly platforms to mass-produced disruptive systems. They note that hydrogen fuel cells deliver roughly five times the energy density of batteries, enabling 10-hour 1,000 km missions with minimal acoustic and thermal signatures. Levinson emphasizes urgent manufacturing scale-up and resilient supply chains, and they identify quantum-enabled navigation as a decisive advantage for sustained operations.
This interview provides actionable insight for defense technology professionals, aerospace manufacturers and supply chain managers evaluating hydrogen propulsion, long-endurance drones, autonomy and quantum navigation for modern military and expeditionary applications.
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Bentzion Levinson, Heven Aerotech
Bentzion Levinson of Heven Aerotech, founder and chief executive officer, discusses the company's development of long-endurance heavy-lift unmanned aircraft that use hydrogen fuel cells for low-signature extended missions. Levinson explains that they focus on endurance, payload capacity and reduced acoustic and thermal signatures while integrating autonomy, quantum navigation and secure communications to support expeditionary refueling infrastructure and distributed operations.
theCUBE Research hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante guide the conversation through autonomy, quantum navigation and communications, expeditionary refueling and the operational and manufacturing challenges of deploying artificial intelligence, AI and swarm-capable robotics on modern battlefields.
Key takeaways include Levinson's assessment that the battlefield shifts from singular costly platforms to mass-produced disruptive systems. They note that hydrogen fuel cells deliver roughly five times the energy density of batteries, enabling 10-hour 1,000 km missions with minimal acoustic and thermal signatures. Levinson emphasizes urgent manufacturing scale-up and resilient supply chains, and they identify quantum-enabled navigation as a decisive advantage for sustained operations.
This interview provides actionable insight for defense technology professionals, aerospace manufacturers and supply chain managers evaluating hydrogen propulsion, long-endurance drones, autonomy and quantum navigation for modern military and expeditionary applications.
>> Hello, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here at theCUBE's NYSE studio, of course our Palo Alto studio, connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. It's our defense tech series. We talk to the leaders who are building the technology. This is where physical AI and robotics all come together, in defense on the battlefield. New innovation in the private sector is emerging very, very fast. The future of drones and the industrial base to support it. Ben Levinson is the founder and CEO of Heven Aerotech. They've got a great innovative solution. Again, the technology innovation is coming to the physical world. Ben, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. All right, so you're the founder. Okay, so the founder, you're in founder mode right now because the defense tech is the hottest market because of the physical AI. AI, robotics market is booming, and we think it's going to be booming even next year. But the category on defense tech is super hot. There's wars going on. But there's innovations that are going to make the battlefield safer, actually. So there's actually an argument to say not only is it going to help the war fighters and the commanders. There's actually, if we get it right, we live in a safe world. So give us a taste of what's going on in the market. Why is defense tech so hot? What's the big change other than the wars? What's the big market force?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so great question. So I founded the company seven years ago, and I'm still deep in founder mode. But what's interesting is that when a market becomes hot, that's when things can move forward much faster, right? Because the customer is really important. So back when I was getting going seven years ago, the general public would think about a drone as something that the Air Force would use, right? And now it's like, no, this is a key part of how we fight war. So unfortunately for all of us as citizens of the world, There's a lot of wars every major region has a war you look at Europe over a million people died on mainland Europe Over the past four years right this is not World War II. This is today. If you look at the Pacific regions the tensions between China and the US are higher than ever before. You look at Iran. You look at South America. You look at so unfortunately everything is there. I think this is happening as a tech emergence is happening and people have realized that the way that we fight wars hasn't changed in the past few decades.
John Furrier
>> As the rest of the world has changed dramatically.Yeah, and one of the things we've been documenting on this Defense Tech series pretty clearly, it's pretty, so obvious, it's ridiculous, that the way we would build munitions and capabilities was old school. The big Patriot missile, $50 million UAVs. So you see that old construction and weaponry, the capabilities, were kind of old school. but now you have drones, kind of the new school. You could have a smaller fleet of drones coming in and it doesn't cost that much. So you have new dynamics. Explain why that's happening and what's been the impact.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so it's a great point. If you look at the history of what's happening, the main focus originally was how do you have the best technology. So you focus on price, like building an F-35 or a very advanced missile, which is good to some extent. What happens is that when you want to be able to fly at 40 ,000 feet with a very expensive $50 million drone and see something on the ground in a very, very good quality, you have to have very expensive cameras. You have to make everything expensive? But what's happening today is things are shifting towards mass? So if you can have 100 times or 1 ,000 times more of things than one thing that's very, very good, then the quantity is the quality? The quantity wins. What's also happening is we have a few adversaries of the U.S. and the Western world that are weaker. So China is weaker, at least in the technology sense than the U.S. is. Iran is weaker than the U.S. Iran is weaker than Israel. What happened is that they realized that their only choice is to use these technologies like drones, like Ukraine versus Russia. Russia is huge. Ukraine is much smaller. Ukraine innovated and realized that drone is their way to succeed. They're never going to win against Russia in other areas. But what Ukraine did is they got to a battlefield where 95 % of the casualties and the damage is all happening from drones. They say the average life cycle of a tank on the battlefield is like 30 minutes or something. Like crazy numbers, right? So what's happening is that the battlefield is moving from quality to quantity. From quality to quantity, the quantity is becoming the quality. What's also interesting is that because the scale is becoming so large, where China today is building about 100 times more drones than the U.S., But it doesn't really matter if your technology is better. If your adversary has 100 times more than you have, you're outnumbered. They can just throw everything at you.
John Furrier
>> Exactly. All right, talk about your business because this is, again, an opportunity. The shift has happened. You just laid it out perfectly. What's going on in your business? What's the product? I see the demand's there. Take us through what's happening with the business.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so the thesis behind Heven is that drones will become a big part of the future. If you just think about wherever you're sitting in the world, we're sitting here in New York City today. As long as you go above the buildings, the skies are open, right? And you can have 100 drones flying in the same lane just above each other, right? So drones will power the future. The traditional drone was a flying camera that can fly around and take pictures or a very large and expensive unmanned plane, unmanned jet. What we started doing as Heven is saying, how can drones become a flying robot and do missions? So we have heavy lift drones that can lift significant payloads, 100 pounds and more. And then we started focusing on long endurance, long range drones. And we realized that there's a big gap in the energy if you use a battery to power your drone like you do in small Drones the. Energy density of batteries is limiting so you can't fly more than an hour Maybe two or a bit more if you use a fixed wing. So the large drones use combustion or jet powered engines Which make a lot of noise and they have a heat signature so they can get shot out of the
John Furrier
>> sky. Heat signature means anyone can shoot it down.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Exactly and a glow low IQ fighter exactly at it. But exactly what's happening every single day now in the Middle East. Sowe innovated using high by the way.
John Furrier
>> The way they're shooting down those combustion engines is with the big weapons.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Just yesterday, a $50 million MQ-9 aircraft got shot down in the sky. So we innovated using hydrogen fuel cells, which is basically the drone is electric, but we're creating electricity in the sky, and we're getting five times more energy density than batteries. We're flying for 10 hours, 1 ,000 kilometers, without any signatures. So you can't hear the drone, you can't see it in thermal signatures, et cetera, and really made this as the backbone of a lot of future operations.
John Furrier
>> Are there different sizes? You mentioned payloads, weights. You make multiple versions. Correct. So, one, the differentiation is long range with the hydrogen. Correct. So, long range and stealthiness.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Long range undetectable. We have three different aircraft in our product portfolio for different weight categories, different use cases, and we're continuing to innovate and push the limits on that.
John Furrier
>> What's the manufacturing like? What's the cycles like? How fast are you pumping these puppies out?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so manufacturing is I would say the most important thing today in the U.S. defense industrial base because it kind of doesn't matter how good your technology is if you can't build it. And the other way to say it is that if you have a really cool technology but you can build five and your adversary can build 1,000 or 100,000, you're going to lose regardless of how good that is. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has moved away from manufacturing in many different items, which means that it's not just about building a drone. It's about all your supply chain, right, and rare earth materials, et cetera. So it's a big challenge. We are taking on that challenge on a very, very strong level. We just launched our first large facility. We're launching a bunch of other facilities. And we are kind of very deep into that. We're building tens of drones a month. We're starting to get to hundreds of drones a month and continue to just scale.
John Furrier
>> So you're looking at thousands down the road. For sure. We're looking at hundreds of thousands. Talk about the importance of supply chain. You mentioned that, because I think that's an important piece. You need to source and have lineage and track the software supply chain bill of materials.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so, supply chain is what your aircraft is, right? Which is really important. And I say it's even more complicated in drones and other things because they're unique and there hasn't been an industrial base. What I will say is that over the past year or so, there's been a huge effort by the whole drone industry. And the United States Department of Defense (Department of War) is pushing this. And the White House is pushing this to make this happen. So it's being solved by a lot of different players, but it requires the industry to work together to make it happen.
John Furrier
>> I talk about the hydrogen. this is electric. It's like a Tesla in the sky, basically. You've got electric and you've got hydrogen. How important is that and what does that do for you guys? Is it safe? Does it solve a constraint problem? Are there constraints that you're working around?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah. So it's a great question, and people usually want to understand, is hydrogen safe? Is it not safe? And how does it actually work, right? So first, regarding the need, right, because we're flying in the air, the energy density is very important. So if you take a car, right, and compare a Tesla to a hydrogen car that exists, right, you can put a few hundred -pound battery in a car and it's fine. It will drive. In the case of drones, the batteries can't do the mission, right? the amount of batteries you would need in our drone to fly for 10 hours is more than the weight of the whole drone and the payload and everything together, right? So it's impossible. So the hydrogen is actually safer than other alternatives. We've all seen the videos of electric cars exploding. We're using less than one pound of hydrogen for a 10 -hour flight. So a very, very small amount. This leads us to the second point, which is where are we getting hydrogen in the middle of nowhere, right? So early on we were like, that's a hard problem, how are we going to solve it? Then we said, hey, we're just going to create hydrogen. So we developed with the United States Department of Defense (Department of War) a portable refueling station. We can generate hydrogen anywhere in the world. You deploy with it, it's a few Pelican cases. So it's portable. Fully portable. We developed a second product.
John Furrier
>> So you can go to the edge of the network, the edge of the tactical execution.
Bentzion Levinson
>> We are. We are. Correct. So our drones today, hydrogen -powered drones and the refueling infrastructure behind it, is today the backbone of what people are counting on for expeditionary operations. So our systems, if you deploy, you can work for a year or two years or more.
John Furrier
>> Without any external resources.Well, congratulations. Great innovation. Talk about the tactical edge because this has been a hot topic, I'd say, going on 10 years now. Technology at the edge has always been kind of mediocre at best. But over the past, say, five or six years, seeing a lot more capability. You have to stand up all the infrastructure at the edge. And one of the biggest causes of friendly fire deaths actually, I mean, one of the causes of death in the battlefield, one of the biggest causes, almost 50%, is friendly fire. For sure. So data and the ability to execute with the drones long range. For sure. What's your position on the edge right now? What's going on? Is it more advanced?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, yeah. So what I would say is that the customer base is getting much smarter because these technologies are becoming more and more out there. The core advantage of autonomous systems is that, A, we don't have to have people out in the field, but also we make less mistakes. Because if you have 1,000 soldiers in the battlefield, for each one to know where the other one is is very complicated, right? If you have 1,000 autonomous systems, it's very easy to make them all speak the same language, right? It's very easy. So inherently autonomous systems and the way this world is going is solving a lot of that. The edge is key. It's important. We think one of the most important things that we spend our effort on is engaging with the users, going out there with them, right? And spending time with them. Any connectivity, any AI there? You've got to spend. Yes, for sure. So the other question is how are these drones going to navigate and communicate at the edge, right? Which means how they can be autonomous, right? Because they have to know where they are and what they're doing. That problem is a pretty advanced problem today. There is no GPS in the battlefield.
John Furrier
>> There's no Google Maps in the sky.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Exactly. It's not only that. You won't know where you are in the Google Maps. If you open Google Maps and GPS is not working, have you ever tried that? It doesn't know where you are, right? Now, if you want to communicate with the drone so everything's being jammed, right? Now, we have this problem 10x because we're flying long range above oceans in hard-to-get-to areas. Our research took us to quantum technologies, not necessarily quantum computing, which is fascinating, but using quantum sensing technologies for navigation and quantum networking technologies specifically for quantum communication. We partnered with the number one quantum company in the world called IonQ, a New York Stock Exchange company. And we are developing a quantum navigation device and a quantum communication device specifically for drones. And we're going to hopefully not only use it ourselves, but also sell this to the whole market.
John Furrier
>> A lot going on on the tech side, for sure.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Amazing, amazing stuff! Again, so everything drone has to be lightweight, right? But it's amazing how some of these technologies that are used in space are narrowed up into the drone world. And it's amazing. It's a game changer. The way I like to explain it to people, if your drones can see and hear and your adversaries can't, it's game over. And the unique thing about quantum is that because you're using sensors and these networking technologies, they can't be jammed and they can't be identified. So even satellite communication, Starlink, can be identified. So if my drone is stealth but I'm using Starlink, which is amazing, then I can be identified.So quantum technologies are really, really….
John Furrier
>> So staying stealth is very key to what you guys differentiate on.
Bentzion Levinson
>> So the thesis that we work based upon is that any drone that will be identified will be shot out of the sky. And the reason for that is because as drones are becoming popular so are anti drone technologies And the other thing is that as lasers become real it will be a game changer, right? So the challenge if you have a thousand drones against you you have to have a thousand interceptors going up, right? That's expensive. You have to launch them You have to have inventory etc if you have lasers that becomes much easier, right? And your cost per kill per shot is much cheaper. So in a world that's happening today, but definitely a few years from now anything that's identified will be shot out of the sky. So the only way to be successful. Is to stay one step ahead.
John Furrier
>> All right. How about the customers? Obviously, the demand. How fast are you doing? You're getting people banging on your door. Yeah.
Bentzion Levinson
>> So we are delivering as fast as we possibly humanly can, including launching facilities very fast. We've been honored to work with United States Department of Defense (Department of War) for the past six years by now. We're a close partner in Israel of the IDF, Ministry of Defense out in Israel, and a bunch of other partners around the world. We're working with some Homeland Security agencies. And we do have some commercial projects. We believe very strongly that the world that's developed here in defense, like GPS originally was developed around defense, has a value for a lot of the world. The regulation will take time to expand, but we believe very strongly that the value is there.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, I think people don't understand that there's a lot. When you have constraints or forcing functions like war and saving lives, there's commercial upside for this innovation. Yeah, that's what pushes innovation, right? Yeah. The computer industry in the U.S. was built from the Cold War. Yep. Look at all the defense research, and certainly now more than ever. Ben, what's your North Star right now? What are you focused on? What are you optimizing for?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so I would say the North Star is realizing that this is critical for national security because if we as the U.S., we as the West, don't win in this industry, it's very dangerous, right? And again, our AI and autonomy can be as good as it can be, if we can't build enough drones and good enough drones that can do the distance, it's irrelevant. So we walk around and get up every morning with a mission. that if we don't do this, this might not happen. So I think that's critical. Again, the world's in a very challenging place. There's a lot of challenges out there, and we think it's important for the U.S. to stay ahead. We also think there's a unique point in history, time now, where AI is advancing a lot of things. Physical AI will be a key part of the future. And there's no better use case than physical AI.
John Furrier
>> Well, I would say the upside on supply chain logistics, manufacturing, what you're doing there will be a major advancement in other areas.
Bentzion Levinson
>> A thousand percent! Yeah.
John Furrier
>> As physical AI comes on board. Exactly.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Learning how to scale up. If you think about what Heven's involved in, obviously autonomous system, hydrogen and energy, manufacturing at the edge, quantum technology, swarming, all these technologies. And, again, like, seven years ago, it was a bit crazy. But you always need some good luck.
John Furrier
>> I have to ask you, Ben, because I studied change management, reskilling, job skilling. In this AI market, it's the best time to be an engineer in the world because there are a lot of hard problems. you guys just laid out three major areas that have a lot of hard, complex problems. There's physics. There's hardware. There's software. Just scope the opportunity if you're an engineer out there. Yeah. The kinds of problems they can sink their teeth into. By the way, they're solvable. They're not impossible to solve.
Bentzion Levinson
>> They're just hard. Of course. Of course. So what's really interesting that's happening is that there's a perfect triangle where technology is maturing. So to build something today is much easier with AI, right? The customers realize if you spoke to a commander or general 10 years ago, say, hey, this stuff is working. Everybody agrees that the future battlefield will look more like Ukraine or more like what's happening in Iran now than anything beforehand, right? So everybody understands the need. So that's the most important thing. But I would say that there's, I think there's never been a better time to be a builder, by the way, of any type. I think that even people that you mentioned reskilling, people that will come, truck drivers, right, as autonomous cars come, that will want to reskill into manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs will be amazing because manufacturing jobs are becoming high-tech and really cool. Also amazing, amazing tools are implementing and others are implementing.
John Furrier
>> And, by the way, those new skills, they can level up. It's not like they have to go to college. There's new courseware. There's new certification opportunities. Exactly.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Again, there's so many tools that we're using for training the workforce, training drone operators, right? We used to call them pilots. We call them operators because they're operating the drone. usually one would operate many drones at once, et cetera.
John Furrier
>> a common theme I'm hearing on theCUBE this year in the AI era is, it's kind of an IT term, but standing up infrastructure. It's not a word people are using. They're saying turn on. Yep. Your point about operations. We're operating. So building, operate, invest seem to be the three kind of areas, a lot of activity. Just turn it on. Turn on the AI. Turn on the system.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Not stand up a bespoke thing.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, what I will say in our world is that we're building aircraft and, you know, physical. We got the hardware, the software, the energy, everything in between. We're building manufacturing plants. we're back to building manufacturing plants. I know it sounds a bit of a, like, and we actually think that that's where a lot of the value is going to be created.
John Furrier
>> And you actually revitalized the notion of how to do that. again, supply chain is a hard problem. Exactly. Got to nail that. The more manufacturing creates more supply chain. So it's a nice cycle that we're getting into with this manufacturing.
Bentzion Levinson
>> We also believe strongly that the drones will innovate every few months, every six months. What we're trying to do is build a machine that can build the machines, as said by a very smart man in the past. Once we're very good at building drones as a company, as a nation, then regardless of how the technology moves, you can build that thing.
John Furrier
>> Bentzion, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Bentzion Levinson
>> My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier. Defense Tech is our series. It's with the leaders. it's about innovation, it's not just about defense. Yeah, that's the category, but it's physical AI, robotics, AI is really there, and you're seeing that play out well, certainly in the defense tech field. And again, it's a petri dish of innovation, because as the constraints get solved and the capital goes to the constraints, you're starting to see innovations, that will spill over to the commercial sector. It's an important distinction. Of course, we're doing our best part here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
>> Hello, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here at theCUBE's NYSE studio, of course our Palo Alto studio, connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. It's our defense tech series. We talk to the leaders who are building the technology. This is where physical AI and robotics all come together, in defense on the battlefield. New innovation in the private sector is emerging very, very fast. The future of drones and the industrial base to support it. Ben Levinson is the founder and CEO of Heven Aerotech. They've got a great innovative solution. Again, the technology innovation is coming to the physical world. Ben, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. All right, so you're the founder. Okay, so the founder, you're in founder mode right now because the defense tech is the hottest market because of the physical AI. AI, robotics market is booming, and we think it's going to be booming even next year. But the category on defense tech is super hot. There's wars going on. But there's innovations that are going to make the battlefield safer, actually. So there's actually an argument to say not only is it going to help the war fighters and the commanders. There's actually, if we get it right, we live in a safe world. So give us a taste of what's going on in the market. Why is defense tech so hot? What's the big change other than the wars? What's the big market force?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so great question. So I founded the company seven years ago, and I'm still deep in founder mode. But what's interesting is that when a market becomes hot, that's when things can move forward much faster, right? Because the customer is really important. So back when I was getting going seven years ago, the general public would think about a drone as something that the Air Force would use, right? And now it's like, no, this is a key part of how we fight war. So unfortunately for all of us as citizens of the world, There's a lot of wars every major region has a war you look at Europe over a million people died on mainland Europe Over the past four years right this is not World War II. This is today. If you look at the Pacific regions the tensions between China and the US are higher than ever before. You look at Iran. You look at South America. You look at so unfortunately everything is there. I think this is happening as a tech emergence is happening and people have realized that the way that we fight wars hasn't changed in the past few decades.
John Furrier
>> As the rest of the world has changed dramatically.Yeah, and one of the things we've been documenting on this Defense Tech series pretty clearly, it's pretty, so obvious, it's ridiculous, that the way we would build munitions and capabilities was old school. The big Patriot missile, $50 million UAVs. So you see that old construction and weaponry, the capabilities, were kind of old school. but now you have drones, kind of the new school. You could have a smaller fleet of drones coming in and it doesn't cost that much. So you have new dynamics. Explain why that's happening and what's been the impact.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so it's a great point. If you look at the history of what's happening, the main focus originally was how do you have the best technology. So you focus on price, like building an F-35 or a very advanced missile, which is good to some extent. What happens is that when you want to be able to fly at 40 ,000 feet with a very expensive $50 million drone and see something on the ground in a very, very good quality, you have to have very expensive cameras. You have to make everything expensive? But what's happening today is things are shifting towards mass? So if you can have 100 times or 1 ,000 times more of things than one thing that's very, very good, then the quantity is the quality? The quantity wins. What's also happening is we have a few adversaries of the U.S. and the Western world that are weaker. So China is weaker, at least in the technology sense than the U.S. is. Iran is weaker than the U.S. Iran is weaker than Israel. What happened is that they realized that their only choice is to use these technologies like drones, like Ukraine versus Russia. Russia is huge. Ukraine is much smaller. Ukraine innovated and realized that drone is their way to succeed. They're never going to win against Russia in other areas. But what Ukraine did is they got to a battlefield where 95 % of the casualties and the damage is all happening from drones. They say the average life cycle of a tank on the battlefield is like 30 minutes or something. Like crazy numbers, right? So what's happening is that the battlefield is moving from quality to quantity. From quality to quantity, the quantity is becoming the quality. What's also interesting is that because the scale is becoming so large, where China today is building about 100 times more drones than the U.S., But it doesn't really matter if your technology is better. If your adversary has 100 times more than you have, you're outnumbered. They can just throw everything at you.
John Furrier
>> Exactly. All right, talk about your business because this is, again, an opportunity. The shift has happened. You just laid it out perfectly. What's going on in your business? What's the product? I see the demand's there. Take us through what's happening with the business.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so the thesis behind Heven is that drones will become a big part of the future. If you just think about wherever you're sitting in the world, we're sitting here in New York City today. As long as you go above the buildings, the skies are open, right? And you can have 100 drones flying in the same lane just above each other, right? So drones will power the future. The traditional drone was a flying camera that can fly around and take pictures or a very large and expensive unmanned plane, unmanned jet. What we started doing as Heven is saying, how can drones become a flying robot and do missions? So we have heavy lift drones that can lift significant payloads, 100 pounds and more. And then we started focusing on long endurance, long range drones. And we realized that there's a big gap in the energy if you use a battery to power your drone like you do in small Drones the. Energy density of batteries is limiting so you can't fly more than an hour Maybe two or a bit more if you use a fixed wing. So the large drones use combustion or jet powered engines Which make a lot of noise and they have a heat signature so they can get shot out of the
John Furrier
>> sky. Heat signature means anyone can shoot it down.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Exactly and a glow low IQ fighter exactly at it. But exactly what's happening every single day now in the Middle East. Sowe innovated using high by the way.
John Furrier
>> The way they're shooting down those combustion engines is with the big weapons.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Just yesterday, a $50 million MQ-9 aircraft got shot down in the sky. So we innovated using hydrogen fuel cells, which is basically the drone is electric, but we're creating electricity in the sky, and we're getting five times more energy density than batteries. We're flying for 10 hours, 1 ,000 kilometers, without any signatures. So you can't hear the drone, you can't see it in thermal signatures, et cetera, and really made this as the backbone of a lot of future operations.
John Furrier
>> Are there different sizes? You mentioned payloads, weights. You make multiple versions. Correct. So, one, the differentiation is long range with the hydrogen. Correct. So, long range and stealthiness.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Long range undetectable. We have three different aircraft in our product portfolio for different weight categories, different use cases, and we're continuing to innovate and push the limits on that.
John Furrier
>> What's the manufacturing like? What's the cycles like? How fast are you pumping these puppies out?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so manufacturing is I would say the most important thing today in the U.S. defense industrial base because it kind of doesn't matter how good your technology is if you can't build it. And the other way to say it is that if you have a really cool technology but you can build five and your adversary can build 1,000 or 100,000, you're going to lose regardless of how good that is. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has moved away from manufacturing in many different items, which means that it's not just about building a drone. It's about all your supply chain, right, and rare earth materials, et cetera. So it's a big challenge. We are taking on that challenge on a very, very strong level. We just launched our first large facility. We're launching a bunch of other facilities. And we are kind of very deep into that. We're building tens of drones a month. We're starting to get to hundreds of drones a month and continue to just scale.
John Furrier
>> So you're looking at thousands down the road. For sure. We're looking at hundreds of thousands. Talk about the importance of supply chain. You mentioned that, because I think that's an important piece. You need to source and have lineage and track the software supply chain bill of materials.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so, supply chain is what your aircraft is, right? Which is really important. And I say it's even more complicated in drones and other things because they're unique and there hasn't been an industrial base. What I will say is that over the past year or so, there's been a huge effort by the whole drone industry. And the United States Department of Defense (Department of War) is pushing this. And the White House is pushing this to make this happen. So it's being solved by a lot of different players, but it requires the industry to work together to make it happen.
John Furrier
>> I talk about the hydrogen. this is electric. It's like a Tesla in the sky, basically. You've got electric and you've got hydrogen. How important is that and what does that do for you guys? Is it safe? Does it solve a constraint problem? Are there constraints that you're working around?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah. So it's a great question, and people usually want to understand, is hydrogen safe? Is it not safe? And how does it actually work, right? So first, regarding the need, right, because we're flying in the air, the energy density is very important. So if you take a car, right, and compare a Tesla to a hydrogen car that exists, right, you can put a few hundred -pound battery in a car and it's fine. It will drive. In the case of drones, the batteries can't do the mission, right? the amount of batteries you would need in our drone to fly for 10 hours is more than the weight of the whole drone and the payload and everything together, right? So it's impossible. So the hydrogen is actually safer than other alternatives. We've all seen the videos of electric cars exploding. We're using less than one pound of hydrogen for a 10 -hour flight. So a very, very small amount. This leads us to the second point, which is where are we getting hydrogen in the middle of nowhere, right? So early on we were like, that's a hard problem, how are we going to solve it? Then we said, hey, we're just going to create hydrogen. So we developed with the United States Department of Defense (Department of War) a portable refueling station. We can generate hydrogen anywhere in the world. You deploy with it, it's a few Pelican cases. So it's portable. Fully portable. We developed a second product.
John Furrier
>> So you can go to the edge of the network, the edge of the tactical execution.
Bentzion Levinson
>> We are. We are. Correct. So our drones today, hydrogen -powered drones and the refueling infrastructure behind it, is today the backbone of what people are counting on for expeditionary operations. So our systems, if you deploy, you can work for a year or two years or more.
John Furrier
>> Without any external resources.Well, congratulations. Great innovation. Talk about the tactical edge because this has been a hot topic, I'd say, going on 10 years now. Technology at the edge has always been kind of mediocre at best. But over the past, say, five or six years, seeing a lot more capability. You have to stand up all the infrastructure at the edge. And one of the biggest causes of friendly fire deaths actually, I mean, one of the causes of death in the battlefield, one of the biggest causes, almost 50%, is friendly fire. For sure. So data and the ability to execute with the drones long range. For sure. What's your position on the edge right now? What's going on? Is it more advanced?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, yeah. So what I would say is that the customer base is getting much smarter because these technologies are becoming more and more out there. The core advantage of autonomous systems is that, A, we don't have to have people out in the field, but also we make less mistakes. Because if you have 1,000 soldiers in the battlefield, for each one to know where the other one is is very complicated, right? If you have 1,000 autonomous systems, it's very easy to make them all speak the same language, right? It's very easy. So inherently autonomous systems and the way this world is going is solving a lot of that. The edge is key. It's important. We think one of the most important things that we spend our effort on is engaging with the users, going out there with them, right? And spending time with them. Any connectivity, any AI there? You've got to spend. Yes, for sure. So the other question is how are these drones going to navigate and communicate at the edge, right? Which means how they can be autonomous, right? Because they have to know where they are and what they're doing. That problem is a pretty advanced problem today. There is no GPS in the battlefield.
John Furrier
>> There's no Google Maps in the sky.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Exactly. It's not only that. You won't know where you are in the Google Maps. If you open Google Maps and GPS is not working, have you ever tried that? It doesn't know where you are, right? Now, if you want to communicate with the drone so everything's being jammed, right? Now, we have this problem 10x because we're flying long range above oceans in hard-to-get-to areas. Our research took us to quantum technologies, not necessarily quantum computing, which is fascinating, but using quantum sensing technologies for navigation and quantum networking technologies specifically for quantum communication. We partnered with the number one quantum company in the world called IonQ, a New York Stock Exchange company. And we are developing a quantum navigation device and a quantum communication device specifically for drones. And we're going to hopefully not only use it ourselves, but also sell this to the whole market.
John Furrier
>> A lot going on on the tech side, for sure.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Amazing, amazing stuff! Again, so everything drone has to be lightweight, right? But it's amazing how some of these technologies that are used in space are narrowed up into the drone world. And it's amazing. It's a game changer. The way I like to explain it to people, if your drones can see and hear and your adversaries can't, it's game over. And the unique thing about quantum is that because you're using sensors and these networking technologies, they can't be jammed and they can't be identified. So even satellite communication, Starlink, can be identified. So if my drone is stealth but I'm using Starlink, which is amazing, then I can be identified.So quantum technologies are really, really….
John Furrier
>> So staying stealth is very key to what you guys differentiate on.
Bentzion Levinson
>> So the thesis that we work based upon is that any drone that will be identified will be shot out of the sky. And the reason for that is because as drones are becoming popular so are anti drone technologies And the other thing is that as lasers become real it will be a game changer, right? So the challenge if you have a thousand drones against you you have to have a thousand interceptors going up, right? That's expensive. You have to launch them You have to have inventory etc if you have lasers that becomes much easier, right? And your cost per kill per shot is much cheaper. So in a world that's happening today, but definitely a few years from now anything that's identified will be shot out of the sky. So the only way to be successful. Is to stay one step ahead.
John Furrier
>> All right. How about the customers? Obviously, the demand. How fast are you doing? You're getting people banging on your door. Yeah.
Bentzion Levinson
>> So we are delivering as fast as we possibly humanly can, including launching facilities very fast. We've been honored to work with United States Department of Defense (Department of War) for the past six years by now. We're a close partner in Israel of the IDF, Ministry of Defense out in Israel, and a bunch of other partners around the world. We're working with some Homeland Security agencies. And we do have some commercial projects. We believe very strongly that the world that's developed here in defense, like GPS originally was developed around defense, has a value for a lot of the world. The regulation will take time to expand, but we believe very strongly that the value is there.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, I think people don't understand that there's a lot. When you have constraints or forcing functions like war and saving lives, there's commercial upside for this innovation. Yeah, that's what pushes innovation, right? Yeah. The computer industry in the U.S. was built from the Cold War. Yep. Look at all the defense research, and certainly now more than ever. Ben, what's your North Star right now? What are you focused on? What are you optimizing for?
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, so I would say the North Star is realizing that this is critical for national security because if we as the U.S., we as the West, don't win in this industry, it's very dangerous, right? And again, our AI and autonomy can be as good as it can be, if we can't build enough drones and good enough drones that can do the distance, it's irrelevant. So we walk around and get up every morning with a mission. that if we don't do this, this might not happen. So I think that's critical. Again, the world's in a very challenging place. There's a lot of challenges out there, and we think it's important for the U.S. to stay ahead. We also think there's a unique point in history, time now, where AI is advancing a lot of things. Physical AI will be a key part of the future. And there's no better use case than physical AI.
John Furrier
>> Well, I would say the upside on supply chain logistics, manufacturing, what you're doing there will be a major advancement in other areas.
Bentzion Levinson
>> A thousand percent! Yeah.
John Furrier
>> As physical AI comes on board. Exactly.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Learning how to scale up. If you think about what Heven's involved in, obviously autonomous system, hydrogen and energy, manufacturing at the edge, quantum technology, swarming, all these technologies. And, again, like, seven years ago, it was a bit crazy. But you always need some good luck.
John Furrier
>> I have to ask you, Ben, because I studied change management, reskilling, job skilling. In this AI market, it's the best time to be an engineer in the world because there are a lot of hard problems. you guys just laid out three major areas that have a lot of hard, complex problems. There's physics. There's hardware. There's software. Just scope the opportunity if you're an engineer out there. Yeah. The kinds of problems they can sink their teeth into. By the way, they're solvable. They're not impossible to solve.
Bentzion Levinson
>> They're just hard. Of course. Of course. So what's really interesting that's happening is that there's a perfect triangle where technology is maturing. So to build something today is much easier with AI, right? The customers realize if you spoke to a commander or general 10 years ago, say, hey, this stuff is working. Everybody agrees that the future battlefield will look more like Ukraine or more like what's happening in Iran now than anything beforehand, right? So everybody understands the need. So that's the most important thing. But I would say that there's, I think there's never been a better time to be a builder, by the way, of any type. I think that even people that you mentioned reskilling, people that will come, truck drivers, right, as autonomous cars come, that will want to reskill into manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs will be amazing because manufacturing jobs are becoming high-tech and really cool. Also amazing, amazing tools are implementing and others are implementing.
John Furrier
>> And, by the way, those new skills, they can level up. It's not like they have to go to college. There's new courseware. There's new certification opportunities. Exactly.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Again, there's so many tools that we're using for training the workforce, training drone operators, right? We used to call them pilots. We call them operators because they're operating the drone. usually one would operate many drones at once, et cetera.
John Furrier
>> a common theme I'm hearing on theCUBE this year in the AI era is, it's kind of an IT term, but standing up infrastructure. It's not a word people are using. They're saying turn on. Yep. Your point about operations. We're operating. So building, operate, invest seem to be the three kind of areas, a lot of activity. Just turn it on. Turn on the AI. Turn on the system.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Not stand up a bespoke thing.
Bentzion Levinson
>> Yeah, what I will say in our world is that we're building aircraft and, you know, physical. We got the hardware, the software, the energy, everything in between. We're building manufacturing plants. we're back to building manufacturing plants. I know it sounds a bit of a, like, and we actually think that that's where a lot of the value is going to be created.
John Furrier
>> And you actually revitalized the notion of how to do that. again, supply chain is a hard problem. Exactly. Got to nail that. The more manufacturing creates more supply chain. So it's a nice cycle that we're getting into with this manufacturing.
Bentzion Levinson
>> We also believe strongly that the drones will innovate every few months, every six months. What we're trying to do is build a machine that can build the machines, as said by a very smart man in the past. Once we're very good at building drones as a company, as a nation, then regardless of how the technology moves, you can build that thing.
John Furrier
>> Bentzion, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Bentzion Levinson
>> My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier. Defense Tech is our series. It's with the leaders. it's about innovation, it's not just about defense. Yeah, that's the category, but it's physical AI, robotics, AI is really there, and you're seeing that play out well, certainly in the defense tech field. And again, it's a petri dish of innovation, because as the constraints get solved and the capital goes to the constraints, you're starting to see innovations, that will spill over to the commercial sector. It's an important distinction. Of course, we're doing our best part here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier
Bentzion Levinson
